The book is the Stockholm sci-fi book
circle’s choice for August. Hal and I have now read it; we’re very curious
about the film.

In a military barracks, children are
locked in cells. When they are taken out to go to school they are chained into
wheelchairs, hands, head and feet strapped in while soldiers aim machine guns
at them. They are not considered human. They are there as objects for
scientific research. Why are these children intelligent, but also ‘hungries’, the
mindless living dead infected by the fungus that has killed most of the human race?

One of the girls, Melanie, is especially intelligent.
One of the teachers, Miss Justineau, regards
the children as human and is especially fond of Melanie.

When the base is attacked by a mob of
hungries Melanie, Miss Justineau, hard-core Sgt Parker, another soldier and
chief scientist Doctor Caroline Caldwell – who had just been about to dissect Melanie’s
brain and who continues to refer to her as ‘the test object’ – escape in a
tank.

In constant danger from hungries, and
each other, they do what they must to survive in the dying hostile world around
and in London.

Words like heart-breaking, heart-warming
and humane come to mind. As well as incredibly suspenseful.

Closely adapted to the book in the beginning
it strays in the second half but finds its way back in the end. There could not
be a better Melanie than young Sennia Nanua, Considine is always good, Arterton
does well as Miss Justineau and this is possibly Close’s best role.

How much one who has not read the book
will get of the depth and complexity of the novel is hard to say but with the
book fresh in one’s memory it holds together well. Its visual strength makes up
somewhat for the severe abridgment of the novel.